The Weird Of The White Witch
by Rebecca Ashling
Summary: The Doctor regenerates and things are, of course, never quite the same again. On this occasion, even more so than usual. Uberfic with Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Uberfic. Willow!Ten/Tara.
1. To The Land Of Nod

**DISCLAIMER:**_ "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is owned by Joss Whedon and his corporate affiliates. "Doctor Who" is owned by the BBC and its corporate affiliates. The Daleks were created by the late Terry Nation and owned by his estate and its corporate affiliates. I own none of these properties and am writing this story for fun, not profit._

**NEW DOCTOR, OLD MEMORIES**

**Chapter One**

The Doctor found, as he had all too many times before, that regeneration was not a trivial matter. In point of fact, it had always been quite the event. It certainly bloody well hurt, something he had forgotten. But then, it damn well ought to be painful, it was his death after all. Sort of. His body and mind, possibly his soul too, dissolved into agonised, amber light, flowing and fluxing, writhing and wriggling. His old self was dissected and demolished, his constituents sifted and sorted, until out from the humongous phase space of all potential Doctors, a new Doctor was elected to the position, forged and annealed, woven and knitted together, then quenched and cast off, to fend for himself, ready to stand on his own two feet. Or not. He felt very giddy, very wobbly on his pins, tummy a bit queasy.

The Doctor's first act in his new incarnation was to squeak in panic, to reflexively clutch at his jeans as they slithered footwards. His kecks, also overlarge, soon followed their denimy associate at the Doctor's feet. This. Was. Mortifying. Hadn't he suffered enough trauma today? He scrounged up all of his available hauteur and tried to ignore, no, deny, definitely deny, the fruits of his embarassment. A common or garden cat was good at putting on the affronted I-DELIBERATELY-meant-to-lool-like-an-utter-prat-an d-DON'T-YOU-DARE-suggest-otherwise lark. A Time Lord was more than just some mere moggie so he should be miles better at this. Right? RIGHT? Of course he was right! He was, after all else, the Doctor.

"Hello, okay." The Doctor absently wiggled his fingers in a little wave at a young woman watching him. He grinned at her. Reassuringly, he hoped. His mouth felt bigger in proportion to his face than it had been. He ran the tip of his tongue along his lips, exploring their new texture. Softer. "New lips, that's weird." He frowned in thoughtful consideration. "And new teeth to go with them." He widened his eyes as an alarming thought struck him. "My teeth are clean, aren't they? They have been flossed and stuff?" He scraped a fingernail along his upper gnashers to check. As smooth as a baby's bottom, no plaque.

"So, where was I?" The Doctor continued, as nonchalantly as he could under these undignified circumstances. "Oh, that's right. Barcelona!"

But which Barcelona? The capital of Catalunya, the city of Antoni Gaudi's never finished basilica, the Sagrada Familia? Or the planet where the dogs had no noses, and unimaginatively jokey tourists got torn to pieces by enraged locals? He honestly couldn't answer that question. Not that any of his memories had been lost, oh no. They were still there in his infinitely capacious Gallifreyan brain, refiled, recatalogued, reorganised. And without an index. This happened every time he regenerated, he couldn't find a sodding thing. It was a nuisance, really it was.

Like now, for instance. Who was that woman looking at him in consternation? Short, with golden-brown hair and greenish-bluey-grey eyes. Teeth gnawing on her lower lip as if chewing the cud. Giving the impression of an especially dim-witted bovine...

"Jo! Jo Grant! Josephine Grant!" exclaimed the Doctor triumphantly. Who else could it possibly be? Sweet girl, not that bright. "Hey, Jo!"

Beaming, the Doctor rushed forward to embrace his companion, unmindful of the trousers and underwear clogging his feet. His momentum body-slammed him on to the Tardis' deck, his face whamming in it an instant later. "Owie." he whimpered plaintively, before deciding that unconsciousness was perhaps, in this case, the better part of valour, and let himself be hurtled down like a meteor to the land of Nod.


	2. She Yelled

**Chapter Two**

Aspirin. Acetylsalicylic acid. There was a whole bottle of it lying in wait by his bed as he awoke. Pills of the evil stuff, with a glass of water standing by. Toxic to Gallifreyan physiology, alas, but it was very thoughtful, very kind of Jo to provide it. Even though he had once emphatically told her it was pure poison to him. Such a silly girl! She meant well and... Whoa! Wait a minute! The Doctor felt suddenly ashamed of himself, the capillaries of his cheeks swiftly a-flush with blushy blood, his shame intense enough to make his face glow in the dark. Not Jo, Tara! Tara, Tara, Tara. How could he have possibly forgotten the name of the young woman who had so recently saved HIM from the monsters? From the monsters of monsters, from the Daleks, no less. True, he was somewhat neurally discombobulated but still... The Doctor gave himself a shrewd slap on the back of his head and, for good measure, boxed his own ears too.

It was all coming back to him now, those final fraught minutes on Station 5, before he had regenerated. The last of the Doctor's allies, Faith Lehane, had just been killed. His eyes had been closed as he awaited his own extermination. A fusilade of massed energy blasts from the confronting Daleks would have meant the end for HIM. Then the regeneration cycle would have been activated. Another volley of weapons fire in the middle of that... Well, that would have been the end of THE Doctor. About time, really. He truly couldn't have said he hadn't earned this. And he couldn't help but relish the irony of the Daleks being given free licence to commit genocide, all because he had been too squeamish, too chicken-hearted, to commit genocide himself, to sacrifice the paltry billions of Earth for the sake of the uncountable potential victims of the Daleks. Either way, the people of Earth had been doomed. It had all been funny in a bittersweet kind of way and you had to take your consolations whenever, wherever you could. But of much bigger, much greater comfort to him, that had warmed him from the tips of his ears to the tips of his toes? His beautiful, gentle, fantastic Tara was safe. Then filling the space station, there had been this pandemonium, the infernal racket of one thousand indignant, trumpeting mammoths having one thousand rectal probes shoved where the sun never shone, all punctuated by a THUD like the doors of eternity being kicked shut. The Tardis had returned, and he'd tasted true despair as his stubbornly devoted, usually blessed with commonsense, fantastic Tara had dealt herself back in the game. Hmmm, he couldn't quite recollect what transpired after that, he'd have to ask Tara later. But he was morally certain, utterly convinced in fact, that she had rescued him.

The Doctor seldom got the chance for a good, old lie-in after a regeneration. There was always seemed to be something that needed sorting out. Hapless innocents to be helped, terrible, geophysical disasters to be averted, brutish corporate, or governmental, leviathans whose nasty existences needed to be cut short, invaders to be firmly ejected from pastoral paradises, and just as firmly discouraged from dreams of reconquest, opposing factions of civil wars to be reconciled... Problems, problems, problems.

Anyway, he'd had enough kip. Time to take a look at himself in the mirror, time to make faces, examine his tongue, tug at his ears, pull his hair, squeeze his nose, have a thorough critique of his new physiognomy, moan at the unfairness of what he'd been given. One thing he did know, courtesy of that unfortunate wardrobe malfunction he had suffered earlier, he was smaller, a lot smaller. Other evidence: he was still wearing his tee-shirt and it swallowed him up like a hungry, cotton drashig. Also, Tara had considerately restored the modesty of his nether regions by redressing him in a pair of her shorts. They fit him pretty well. So, oh yeah, tiny.

Where was the mirror? Ah, other there where it usually was, at the foot of his bed, cunningly disguised by having his jacket draped over it. By Tara, presumably. That was worrisome. She evidently hadn't wanted his reflection to be the first thing he saw when he woke up. That bad, eh? He hoped his visage hadn't become too freaksome. Padding over to the mirror, he hovered indecisively for a few moments before giving into his curiosity. Curiosity, his fatal flaw. "Tally-ho!" he cried out, and uncovered the mirror.

Silky, red hair, huge hazel eyes with emerald flecks, soft, pale skin, a quirky, mobile mouth and... The Doctor froze in shock, made a tentative, tactile confirmation.

"What. The. Frilly. Heck!" She yelled


	3. A Good, Strong Mocha Instead

**Chapter Three**

The respiratory bypass system was an extraordinarily useful part of Gallifreyan biology. When it functioned, that is. The Doctor had never found it entirely reliable, but it had always worked in a pinch. Such as that time when she had survived being throttled by a robotic, Egyptian mummy. Well, what could have been pinchier than that? And handy for panicky hyperventilation too, it would seem. When had she last had a panic attack? Oh, way, way back in her second incarnation, four or five subjective centuries ago, give or take. Poor, old Two! He'd never really had the temperament to handle the scrapes he'd get into. He would always work himself into a tizzy, worry and wail, and generally carry on in a fashion unbefitting a Time Lord. And as for his companions... They had been no help whatsover, showing too little initiative or too much, always nagging the miserable wretch during a crisis, pestering him while he was trying to salvage some precious pearl of victory from the pig slurry of defeat. Idiots! Thank goodness for the sterling companionship of such friends as Sarah Jane, Ace or Tara, who could, if necessary, and by golly it was always necessary, actually act with proper independence from the Doctor. She thought fondly of bright and brittle Sarah Jane, of energetic and excitable Ace, wondered what had become of them.

The Doctor's breathing had finally steadied, her emotional equilibrium on a more even keel. Thinking on Two's misfortunes, her own past misfortunes, had been a grand way of calming the seething ocean of her agitated mind. When you were a Time Lord, schadenfreude had somewhat peculiar ramifications. Her sudden frisson of fright over the matter of her changed gender struck her as odd. This possibility, while uncommon for most Gallifreyans, had been, during her distant schooldays at the Time Lord Academy, explained to her and the rest of her class of sniggering, secretly scared adolescents, with dry precision and in exhaustive detail. She had had good chums, like the Corsair (well, only one pal quite like the Corsair), who had customarily become, with each one of their regenerations, any one of the four Gallifreyan sexes. Yes, this was all something of an exceptional circumstance for the Doctor who had, in this one particular, become set in her ways, but it was no big deal. Not really. So why had she kicked up such a fuss? Why such freaked out unease?

Well now, back to more serious business! The Doctor continued her old and valued post-regenerative tradition, the appraisal of her new reflection. She grinned dazzlingly at the richly vibrant hair. She had always had a hankering to be ginger. Ginger! Such an inadequate word for this gorgeously foxy shade, almost insultingly so. It was good to be ginger again. Heck, it was good to be a girl again! She saw the bridge of her nose scrunch up in puzzlement, then her lambent, liquid eyes widen in sudden alarm. Those were decidedly odd things to think. Since when had she had red hair? Or been a woman for that matter? Not ever, for either. Of that, she was positive.

With an act of will, the images of every one of her past selves were brought to stand before her inner gaze. From the one most recently gone, the haggard, guilty survivor of the last, great Time War, down to the very first Doctor, that fierce, hawkish elder, his head crowned with silver locks, his gaze stern. They were all there, all nine of them (plus Him, the holder of the Moment, who the Doctor would never talk about), none of them female, not one a redhead. But wait! There! Lurking at the back, eclipsed by the distracting bombast of her sixth incarnation... Someone else. Someone she had forgotten, someone she had no suspicion ever existed. A shape, shadowy and blurred, a memory of sorrow and loss. But definitely feminine, the Doctor was certain of it. The marrow of her bones ached with unspoken knowledge, and she knew if she could but only name this unexpected stranger, she would understand how the Stranger belonged to her.

What to do? The Doctor could sequester herself in the Tardis' zero room, centre herself with rest and meditation. That was the recommended procedure for a dodgy regeneration but that didn't quite sit right with her, felt too cerebral. She sighed in vexation and decided to let the Stranger be for now. It was time to get dressed and find Tara. As old a soul as she was, as seemingly serene as she was, Tara was still not entirely inured to the excitements of the Doctor's dangerous lifestyle and needed to be reassured. Then mash a pot of tea, a good, strong brew. The Doctor's lips twisted in a moue of disdain. What was she thinking? No, make that a good, strong mocha instead.


	4. As The Memory Took Her

**Chapter Four**

But it was not that easy for the Doctor to let go of the Stranger, for she dearly loved mysteries. Or they loved her. She was so often bumping into, or stumbling over them, that doubtlessly the mysteries themselves considered her to be some kind of creepy, klutzy stalker. Enough! She had to stop yammering to herself. Thus it was, with reluctance, that the Doctor, before she could spin it into flimsy threads of baroque conjecture, dropped the yarn of her woolgathering. She shook her flamey (extra flamey!) hair from her face, briskly smacked the palms of her hands together. Time to be clad! Time to get dolled up in flash, new togs. In a way, clothing defined the Doctor, set the tone for a given incarnation, made said incarnation a nonpareil, told miscreant monsters just who, and what, they would be messing around with this time.

From somewhere to her left, the Doctor heard a clickety-snick noise. She span about on the balls of her feet and peered inquisitively at the source of the sound. A door. An open door. Through which she could see clothes. Ha! That was nifty. For whatever bizarre reason a nine-dimensional consciousness might have, perhaps for the sheer joy of it, the Tardis sometimes liked to play hide-the-interior-dimensions-from-the-Doctor. Not on this occasion, however. The Tardis was being helpful for a change. The Doctor had had her hearts set on a bow-tie and a fez, fezzes being, in her humble opinion, cool. So when she entered her wardrobe, she was deeply disappointed, deeply desolated, deeply disconsolate to find that the Tardis had rather slyly hidden all her boy clothes. Maybe not so helpful after all. She pouted crossly. "Meanie!" Grumbling to herself (there was nothing wrong with her dress sense, nothing!), she stomped her way to the spiral staircase which linked the levels of the great, multi-tiered space, banged and clanged her feet on each one of its steps as she climbed it. All about her, racks of clothing in rallied ranks displayed a total galaxy of garb. Everything she could possibly want to wear. On the distaff side, at least. Still fuming, an expression of grim resolve hardened her face. Showtime!

After much dithering and deliberation, the Doctor had finally been able to put together the first of the many outfits that, in the next couple of hours, she would be giving an audition to. She surveyed her reflection with a critical eye. She liked it, this plaid dress over a blouse, but even to her alien aesthetics, those white tights were hideous. Utterly horrid. Besides, this particular combo? It made her look so young, it made her look like a child, and she was so not a kid. Childish, yes. She certainly couldn't argue with that. Her fourth incarnation had once told Sarah Jane that there was little point in being a grown-up if you couldn't be childish. The Doctor nodded emphatically to herself. Darn tootin'! She smirked reminiscently. Four could overdo the tantrumy petulance at times and to be truthful, he always had, but he had in no way been as bad as Six. Six. Six, Six, Six. She grimaced at the thought of that... excrescence. It brought a bitter odour to her mind, a noisome taste. Six had been a braggart and a bravo, seemingly colour-blind, sartorially challenged, violent. A bully. And the Doctor could never abide a bully. Never.

From the morass of her murky memory, a childhood recollection stuck its hurtful snout out of the Doctor's muddy past. On long lost, timelocked Gallifrey there had been this vile approximation of a shrub that had been imported to that world during an unhinged fad for the grotesque. You really had to see and smell the repulsive thing to comprehend its full awfulness. It wasn't anything at all like a malefic melange of a putrid bear, a haemarrhagic piglet or a leprous donkey. Not unless the light was very dim, not unless you were even more insanely optimistic than Pollyanna on ecstasy and crack. Oh, no, it looked much, much worse than that. And the stink of it! Abominable beyond both imagining and endurance. The plant, if that had been what it was, proved to be extraordinarily useful. Its exotic biochemistry produced a vast pharmacopeia of all kinds of wondrous things. So it alone had been suffered, long after all its unspeakable, fellow immigrants had been expunged, to exist beneath the orange skies and twin suns of Gallifrey, to befoul the planet's scarlet fields and silver forests with its noxious presence. It had become a naturalised, but still unloved, citizen of the worldscape. Sort of the local equivalent of the willow of Earth. It had been dubbed the doctor tree...

The Doctor! That hated, hated nickname. The Doctor's stomach convulsed in vain as it tried to void its empty contents. Bile burned her pharynx. Her fingers compressed themselves into fists, their knuckles whitening, their nails forced into her palms. She wanted to be brave but to no avail, hot tears of humiliation leaked from the corners of her eyes, bloody drops dripped from her clenched hands. She fell to her knees and screamed. A keening wail of grief for herself, a guttural cry of rage at the bitch who had thus branded her. When her throat turned too raw, too tender, when even she could not draw sufficient breath, her screaming broke down into muted, gulping sobs as the memory took her.


End file.
